Next week, Ubisoft will be performing large-scale server maintenance, which could see its DRM-handling go offline. It would directly impact some games that are designed to work with Ubisoft's infamous "Always-Online" DRM, which requires gamers to be connected to the internet when playing games enabled with it. Tom Clancy’s HAWX 2, Might & Magic: Heroes 6 and The Settlers 7 will be unplayable during the course of maintenance. Bigger titles such as Assassin’s Creed: Revelations and Driver: San Francisco, however, will stay online for the duration of the switch-over. Ubisoft is loathed for its hyper-strict DRM that requires you to ping their DRM servers every few moments to reassure them you're not a pirate. It is even known to limit activations to your graphics card. This is yet another example where DRM only ends up hurting legitimate users more than piracy.

I still remember Far Cry 2, I preordered it on Steam. The day it released, I saw it was using some kind of hideous activation DRM so I used a crack instead. Sad days when the pirated versions are superior to the ones we PAY for.

Honestly though, as much as I argue against piracy... this is a situation where I wouldn't blame anybody for getting a crack. Me thinks a judge would even see it your way on this one. Cracking something you legally purchased because the provider knee-capped it... hmm, whatever.

Kinda makes me think back to the Soundblaster dibacle where they nerfed their own products via driver... and then did whatever they could to make the older more capable driver inaccessible... and then sued the guy that wrote new driver re-enabling all the stuff they nerfed. WTF!

I like the points Gabe makes in that article, though if i were him i'd have severed any contracts with Ubi years ago.
Third party DRM, particularly Ubi's, has been by far the largest source of negative press Steam gets, not to mention all the issues Steam support has to deal with from pissed off customers.